In the News 06.05.15 : Today’s Articles of Interest from around the Internets

“Anna Wintour’s fame is born not only of success but of performative silence. No one does mystery better than she, with that bob and those sunglasses and those thin arms folded across her chest. She is spectacularly controlled, extremely focused, comfortable with power, and preternaturally disinclined to misstep or misspeak. Perhaps this is precisely because she is not, and has never been, hugely giving on the topic of herself. She is happier to talk about designers she admires, the charities she supports, what makes a dress perfect, or anything having to do with theater or film. This, of course, only adds to the sense of curiosity about her. I briefly worked with Wintour in 2000, and she was briefly the fashion editor of this magazine in the ’80s. I sat down with Wintour both at the Met and at her airy 25th-floor WTC office last month for a talk.”

“Over the years, Google has acquired more than 180 different companies.

On its top ten acquisitions alone, it has spent more than $24.5 billion dollars.

That’s a lot of money, but Google has learned how to make the most of those purchases. Time Magazine recently wrote that the company had ‘perfected’ the Silicon Valley acquisition, in part because its so good at retaining talent.”

“A SURPRISE OF BEING AROUND POLICE is how much they touch you. They touch you without consent and in both seemingly friendly and unfriendly ways. The friendly touch is the first surprise. A policeman allowing protesters to cross the street touches you on the arm or back as you cross. Face to face, police will put a hand on your shoulder, from the front, intimate as a dog putting his paw up. It is unnerving. Women say male police know very well how to touch, even in public sight, in ways that are professional and neutral, and also in ways that are humiliating and sexual, with no demonstrable distinction dividing the two. The police know, and you know. Like a reversal of electric polarity from protective to hostile, this conversion of mood does not only follow the policeman’s individual initiative. It traces something like an atmospheric charge among police in groups, their silent experience of a phenomenon, their habitual tactics in response.”

“Before leaving his girlfriend’s apartment in Crown Heights, on the morning of his nineteenth arrest for impersonating and performing the functions of New York City Transit Authority employees, Darius McCollum put on an NYCTA subway conductor’s uniform and reflector vest. Over his feet he pulled transit-issue boots with lace guards and soles designed to withstand third-rail jolts. He took transit-issue work gloves and protective goggles. He put a transit-issue hard hat on his head. In his pockets he carried NYCTA work orders and rerouting schedules and newspaper clippings describing his previous arrests: for driving subway trains and buses and various other vehicles without authorization, possessing stolen property, flagging traffic around NYCTA construction sites, forging documents.”

“Why can some companies, like Apple, seem to be able to sell us just about anything? Discussions on the topic often range from user experience (“it just works”) to brand power (“think different). But what are the actual components of this success and do these components develop over time in predictable ways?”